


Phantasma Diagnoses

by Ficticin



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Diary/Journal, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 11:48:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5204744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ficticin/pseuds/Ficticin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After returning to America following the incident at Allerdale Hall, Dr. Alan McMichael struggles to reconcile all that he has experienced... and everything that he is about to, as a familiar voice begins to call his name in the darkness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_“You’re a doctor. Show me where.”_

The snow fell with the softness of a butterflies wings, canvasing his face as though little more than finely powdered drops of sugar. The snow decayed to water against his face, still warm, but losing its color as the merlot stream of blood soaked against his side, pouring like a bottle just beneath his arm.

Thumb grazing over his knuckle, his hand had felt so cold. He had prepared himself for the pain, guiding the other man’s hand with his own, to the lower right portion of his abdomen. God, it would hurt, but he would live. He had wanted him to live. He could remember that, the pity, the sympathy in his eyes, and the hesitation of the hand that clasped the weapon so dutifully.

The snow did not melt when it fell trapped in the spiders web of in his dark lashes.

He felt his skin tear, heavy with the pressure of the blow, and he gasped for air.

Everything burned.

Everything burned c _rimson_.

 


	2. Chapter 2

_The Personal Journal of Dr. Alan McMichael_

_November 12, 19—_

_Evening_

 

It has not been long since  ~~Ms. Cushing~~ , ~~Ms. Sharpe~~ , ~~the late Ms. Sharpe~~ , ~~the widowed~~ , Mrs. Sharpe — must I still call her that? Edith. _Edith_. Edith and myself have left England, the red clay of that damned countryside a sign of Gods wrath on that place. Despite what it may appear for our respectability, I have taken Edith in to my own home. She is without a family now, without much of anything, save for her inheritance. I know mother frowns upon it, however after what we have been through, letting her out own her own seemed unreasonably cruel.

There will be no investigation to what happened at Allerdale Hall, or to say, as far as our roles go. Perhaps it is the first open and closed case for the Sharpe’s legacy. Edith’s story matched my own, the deception, the murders. Lucille’s body was found in the snow, half-mixed with the hellish clay that seeps from the ground there: God’s own curse upon that infernal land. It should be damned, as it is, and burned. I did not see Thomas’ body, but I know it must have existed. He is dead, as the statement says, and Edith the sole beneficiary of his trusts due to their marriage, no matter how much of a sham.

Still I find my mind drawn to the red land. The dreams, the…emptiness of those halls. Had I known what sort of place Sir Sharpe was taking her, would I have let her go? My dear friend, her father lost, to find herself in such haunted halls. It seems I have had too much of bodies lately. I had shut down my practice for only a short time to follow her, to save her from what I knew, but since I have returned I cannot walk into that empty room without the feeling I am not alone. A chill, something cold pulls at my shoulder at night, and I cannot shake it from myself. It is happened so frequently that I am beginning to believe it.

I am not alone.

 

_\- A. McMichael_

 


	3. Chapter 3

_The Personal Journal of Dr. Alan McMichael_

_November 14, 19—_

_Mid-Day_

 

I was required at my practice for paperwork due to leasing this very morning. Normally there would be nothing to make note of from my visit, if it weren’t for my previous entry. I mentioned how uncomfortable it made me, a presence weighing me down, but it is more than that. The windows had been shut when I walked in, kicking up dust like an inverted rainfall. My wounds have not entirely had time to heal, my walking slow and the cold almost always present. A four hour walk in the winter of England has hurt my lungs, and I have been left with a continual cough, and my arm refuses to bend.

I made it half-way into the room when I felt it, when I…christ, I cannot say I _heard_ it, but I did. Footsteps behind myself, a figure out of the corner of my eye, somewhere along the shelves that Edith had inspected on her first visit to me. With the Conan Doyle and the medical books, I…the figure was thin, but I imagine it was only something of my imagination. The place is uncomfortable to me. I was foolish enough to shout at it, to ask who was there, as though someone really _were_ in the room with me, but there was no answer.

Throwing the windows open, the place flooded with light, and I felt humiliated as no one was present. Not among the books, not even in the hall. My mother had been there, I am sure, the presence of a single, half-dead rose upon my desk some sort of apology for not being here for my return. There was mail, too, and the mountain of paperwork I had come to my office for. I told the story to Edith, and she only stared. I care for that woman dearly, my truest of friends, but her mind is a canvas too dark to see the art in. Most often she cries these days, thinking of Thomas, her hands trembling. I fear someday ever knowing the pain my dear Edith has suffered.

We, or rather, she received a letter saying that Ms. Sharpe’s body was cremated, upon Edith’s request. Sir Thomas has been buried, and neither are on our side of the ocean. Edith has asked me to visit Mr. and Mrs. Cushing’s grave with her this afternoon, and all I can think of is that it was the last time I saw him before Allerdale. He had such a way of being handsome, I am no longer sure if I saw defense in his eyes, or sympathy. May he rest in peace, and may the many lives here be unhindered by the disasters there.

 

_\- A. McMichael_

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

_The Personal Journal of Dr. Alan McMichael_

_November 15, 19—_

_Midnight, Before Dawn_

 

I feel compelled to write everything that has happened to me before I forget it. My eyes are heavy with tiredness, but I force myself to persist by candlelight. I have awoken from a dream of which I have no words. I recall only darkness and a shadow. Not…a shadow of darkness, black cannot be seen on black, the idea of such is preposterous, but something _light_. A figure, with thin shoulders and slick hair, but it was vague and hollow. Like a fading candle light it was…diaphanous. Translucent, like fading candlelight. It turned to look at me and where its face should have been there was only one red eye. I keep myself from calling it a nightmare, for I did not feel fear or dismay. I was calm. It was…soothing.

I awoke when Edith stirred me, only minutes ago. Sleep has been elusive to her and it makes me worry. Her body has become so sullen, her sleeplessness affecting her most horribly. Her hand was on my chest and she looked at me with such _horror_. Urging me to return to my bed, she handed me the lamp she’d been carrying, and disappeared down the hall into the darkness. I startled her, but I do not know why.

Edith told me I had been speaking in my sleep, but when I asked her what, she did not answer.

The night calls to me like a song.

 

_\- A. McMichael_

 


	5. Chapter 5

_The Personal Journal of Dr. Alan McMichael_

_November 15, 19—_

_Evening_

 

Edith and myself have experienced equal setbacks. Early this morning, after I had returned to sleep, her wound reopened. I know that she neglected it before waking me, much of the blood on her face had already dried and her wound had started to clot. The reopening of her cut is abnormal, to say the least. It has not been long since we returned to America, but it has been quite a time since the first incision. In fact, the cut upon her face had been more akin to scar tissue than a real injury of any sort. I still find myself struggling to find an explanation for it. I would expect such from a deep wound, but the injury Edith sustained hadn’t gone thick enough to warrant such reopening. Then there was the way she looked at me.

Our relationship has been unstable, both since I came to her at Allerdale Hall and her union with Sir Thomas. Unstable, and not uncomfortable. This very day it became the latter. As I patched the wound with little more than gauze and inspection, there was something haunting about the way that Edith looked at me, or rather, past me. I feel silly even writing such a thing in my journal, but it is what I feel to be the truth. She would not look into my eyes, only over my shoulder, not speaking. Edith has been distant since her first interactions with Sir Thomas, however this is different. I cannot begin to explain how, only that I can feel it, like she’s always looking past me, or through me.

My own injury is different in nature but just as…strange. There is no other word for it. Whilst pouring through a book of mine, Leander’s _Engineering of the Eye: a collection of essays on optical experimentation and methods_ , my own hand began to burn as strongly as though I had stuck it like a spear into coals. Dropping the book instantly, I found scarring on my hand consistent with burns from steam. Edith was eager to assist with binding my hand, dismissing it with chatter of the past, urging me to be more careful, but I hadn’t the heart to tell her how it had happened. What sort of words can you offer as a comfort when a situation is so unbelievable to ears? A man cannot be wounded by mere air, that sort of thing would be the work of magic, and if not magic, then the devil. Even as I write, my hand aches from the torture to my skin, and still I cannot believe it.

This house is becoming foreign to me.

_\- A. McMichael_

 


End file.
